


Reunion

by eerian_sadow



Series: Sparkeaters and Other Walking Dead [7]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Implied Character Death, Mentions of Violence, energy vampires, spark eaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 20:09:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5599231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eerian_sadow/pseuds/eerian_sadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Long after Jazz's resurrection,  Ironhide finally sees him again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2015 round of hurt/comfort bingo.

Ironhide heard a choked off scream and the sound of a fist impacting against armor, scanned the battlefield and saw no one but Autobots still standing and turned toward the source of the noise. Without even pausing to calculate the odds of the sounds being made by unfriendlies, the sparkeater began moving toward it with the near-silent grace of the predator he had become.

Something was vaguely _off_ about the situation, but he couldn't figure out what it was. 

He was startled by a ping to his comm unit, but the text message Optimus had attached almost made him smile. _Be careful and call if you need me. Good hunting._

He didn't know if he was hunting or not yet, but he was impressed that the younger mech was learning to read his body language so well. Ironhide knew he didn't give the Prime much of a chance to see him in action.

The warrior sent an answering message back to his leader, _I will, thank you._ Then he continued on his way. He could still hear the sounds of a struggle, though they were fainter and it was obvious that someone was trying to stay quiet.

Then, as he stepped around a corner, he heard the clatter of a body falling to the ground and found himself staring into a blaster cannon and a once familiar visor. A visor that was tinted the same shade of violet as his own optics, now.

“Jazz.” The warrior found himself lowering his own weapon. 

“Ironhide.” Jazz’s blaster lowered a fraction, but stayed pointed at vital systems. “You look like slag, mech.”

Ironhide studied his old comrade carefully. Jazz looked… better than he felt, despite the clear presence of crude welds between his natural silver plating and the black and white legs he had stolen from Barricade’s body. The saboteur and sometimes-scout was at least _integrating _the foreign parts into his body, which was more than he could say for the patches Ratchet had put of his last set of battle injuries.__

__“You look better than I expected,” The black mech replied._ _

__“That’s not saying much, since you thought I was dead.”_ _

__“I was there, when you killed Barricade.” Ironhide shuddered at the memory of the empty the Decepticon had become. “I knew what had happened to you.”_ _

__Jazz shrugged and allowed his cannon to retract into his plating. “I’d just crawled off the bottom of the ocean. I was hungry, mech. I wasn’t thinking clearly enough not to leave a mess til later.”_ _

__“Yeah.” The warrior cycled his ventilation system._ _

__“Look, why don’t we go someplace and talk. Sparkeater to sparkeater.” The mostly-silver mech turned and picked up the wayward Decepticon he had caught--the action that had caught Ironhide’s attention in the first place. “And you can have something to eat. Looks like you need it more than I do.”_ _

__-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _

__Jazz led him to the top of an abandoned building--a clock tower, if he remembered what Lennox had told him about this city correctly--reviving Ironhide’s long-held suspicion that the mech had been sparked half-Seeker. No ground-bound mech liked to be so high in the air._ _

__“I keep hoping that you’ll hide in a nice, safe bunker like I taught you.” Ironhide repressed a shiver. There were reasons he rode as close to the center of an air transport as possible._ _

__The saboteur shrugged and dropped the Decepticon--the weapons master refused to think of the mech as _prey_ the way Jazz did--on the floor and walked away from him. “I like the open air. Eat up, while I go turn off a few booby traps.”_ _

__“Yeah, sure.” He didn’t have any desire to be blown up by one of Jazz’s security devices. “But I’m fine. I don’t need to eat.”_ _

__“You’ve been saying that since we left the battle site.” The silver mech’s voice faded as he stepped behind a wall. “But we both know you’re lying.”_ _

__Despite himself, Ironhide turned stared at the offline Decepticon, one of the Fallen’s recently created hatchlings. He felt like purging the contents of his fuel tank when he thought of feeding on the hatchling’s spark, of robbing him of any sort of chance at a life beyond what the Fallen had created him for. It wouldn’t do any good, he knew, if he did try to purge--there was no energon left in his body--but the urge was still present._ _

__“Look mech, if you don’t eat, you’re going to go into stasis lock. Maybe not today or tomorrow but soon.” Jazz stepped into his field of vision, distracting him from the young mech on the ground. “And you’ll stay that way until a food source wanders by, and that’s all they’ll be. Might be Optimus or Sideswipe, might be Bee or Que. It won’t matter, because your systems will be so starved for energy that you’ll grab anyone and feed til they’ve extinguished. You won’t have any control, and you won’t get a chance to stop or be pulled off before it’s too late.”_ _

__“I’m fine.” Ironhide cycled his vents and looked away from the hatchling. “I won’t feed on a hatchling.”_ _

__“So, you’d leave him alive to kill someone we love in battle then? On top of making yourself a time bomb that’s just waiting to do the same?” Jazz shook his head and turned away from the black mech. “I thought you were smarter than that. Starscream turned us into monsters, but at least we have choices.”_ _

__“And I choose not to kill outside battle.”_ _

__“You’re choosing to kill your family instead!” The silver mech walked toward the window that looked out over the city. “You’re choosing to kill _my_ family.”_ _

__“Oh, you’re a good one talk about family.” Ironhide stepped away from the hatchling and stomped over to Jazz. “The family you abandoned, is that the one you mean? Did you even think about how it would hurt Bumblebee and Optimus when you didn’t come home?”_ _

__“They’re safer without me. They always have been.” Despite the warrior looming over him, the saboteur laughed bitterly. “I’ve always been a monster, Hide. Screamer just put a name to it.”_ _

__“You’re an idiot, is what you are.” Ironhide balled his hands into fists, barely resisting the urge to punch the other mech. “Bee and Optimus sit up at night, watching for you. It’s been almost four years and they’re still hoping you’ll come home. Some nights, I can even hear him crying for you when he thinks no one else--”_ _

__The warrior broke off in shock as Jazz’s fist slammed into his chin. The saboteur’s visor flickered in surprise for a moment before the silver mech straightened and stood up defiantly._ _

__“Don’t you even try to guilt trip me, Ironhide. You don’t know what it’s been like for me out here.”_ _

__“Not any more than you know what it’s been like for me.”_ _

__The Sparkeaters glared at each other for several long moments before Jazz’s shoulders slumped. “One Pit of a pair, aren’t we?”_ _

__“Yeah.” Ironhide turned so that his back was against one of the wall supports and slouched against it. “You should come home, Jazz. For Bumblebee’s sake, if nothing else.”_ _

__The silver mech cycled his vents in an almost-sigh. “Eat before you go, huh? Before Sideswipe and his smart mouth start looking like a buffet line.”_ _

__The black mech laughed softly, recognizing Jazz’s dark humor for what it was. The he stood back up and took a step toward the hatchling._ _

__He still didn’t want to feed on a mech that was barely old enough to hold a blaster, but Jazz wasn’t wrong about leaving the Decepticon alive to take shots at Optimus being a mistake._ _

__

__-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _

__

__“You look better, old friend.”_ _

__Ironhide couldn’t help but notice the relieff in Optimus’ posture and energy signature as the Prime welcomed him back to their temporary base. It hit him almost as forcefully as a small, silver fist to the chin._ _

__“I feel better,” the warrior confessed softly. “I’m sorry.”_ _

__Optimus pulled him into a hug and held him tightly._ _

__

__-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ _

__

__Once the first stars twinkled into sight in the night sky, Jazz activated his comm system. He let the open line hiss at him for a few moments as he tried to figure out what to say, then he activated a call code he hadn’t used since before he’d landed on Earth._ _

__“Hey, Bee.”_ _

___”Jazz?”_ The single word held an entire universe of hope, sadness and almost-joy._ _

__Jazz’s spark almost broke when he heard it. Ironhide was right; he had left this far too long. “Yeah, it’s me. I… I’m sorry, Bee.”_ _

___”I know, Jazz. It’s okay.”_ _ _

__It wasn’t, might not be for a long time, but it was a start._ _


End file.
